Just thought I'd share a few pics of my CNC Taig with you all. I'm using Mach 3 software to control her and she runs fantastic.

I've added:
-home made touch plate
-home made quick belt change motor plate
-home made spindle LED lamp
-quick change toolchanger
-home made laser locator
-home made vac jig

Dave

Man that is a nice set up...what CAD software do you use?

Thanks so much, I'm using ProgeCAD at the moment with VCarve Pro .

Dave

Very nice setup Dave. The Z touch off plates really work nice. I finally eliminated the plate and just touch off against the work surface, metal parts of course. I did find there is no continuity through the spindle if the spindle is running. I guess the grease film in the bearings is working.

Are you using the LocLine and nozzle to direct an air blast at the cut or are you using coolant of some sort?

Regards,

Chuck

Thanks, Chuck, yes the nozzle is for air that comes from a large pond air pump. It's works great but I have to admit it's not as good as any coolant setup.

I'm working on coming up with an enclosure and then a coolant setup in the future.

Dave

looks great

Dave

The laser cross hair is awesome, were did you get it?

Anthony

Hi there, it's just a simple 3-5 volt laser purchased from ebay and mounted in a housing I made from a chunk of Delrin.-

Dave

the laser is a great touch, i like how you mounted it on the spindle housing.
do you notice any difference in where the cross hairs are projected as you raise or lower your spindle on the z-axis since the laser isn't mounted coaxial with the spindle?

-steve

Welcome to the forum, Steve

Just to be clear how it is mounted, the cross hairs are striaght down vertically, not angled like on a drill press but I guess since I didn't explain how it worked, it's easy to understand how one would think it would lose position as the z was moved up and down.

As mentioned, it's perfectly vertical with the Z axis and what I do is, I locate the cross hairs over the center of the part (or wherever I want to locate the material), and then I have a macro script in Mach 3 so that when I click the button on my Mach 3 screen, it compensates for the difference in location of the spindle.

Here a little bit of my Mach 3 Screen to show the Laser button for you (sorry about the washed out colors, the pic is a JPG and doesn't show as clear and colorful as it should be) :





Got the idea from a great guy "Greolt" over at the CNC Zone forum.



Dave

I actually use the Shuttle Pro as shown in the Video above but here are a few pics of my actual unit. I'm using the Mach 3 Plug-in that were written specifically for the Shuttle Pro and made a "holster" for it. The sleeve that it sits into is actually an old leather trifold wallet.....

Dave

I would advise you to read this whole thread as there's a bit to learn about the unit and it's plug-in. You can find it here:

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,1220.0.html

As for the Shuttle Pro 2, just do a google search for it and there are plenty of places that handle it as it was originally designed for Video applications.

Just a note, you can use gaming joysticks and game controllers for Mach 3 and you can use the software called KeyGrabber that is included with Mach 3.

It takes some getting onto but is pretty easy when you dig into it.

Dave

that's a great setup. thanks for the info on the macro and how the laser sight works!

Finished my 4th (A) axis today and thought I'd share a few pics.

It's a Sherline rotary table which is easily the best little table out there that I have found for the money and that's probably why most major benchtop CNC companies use them.

The base has a step block on the bottom that is parallel to the table to ease in mounting and locating the assembly.

The electronics come from Probotix and so far the stuff seems decent but time will tell. No squealing or grinding or anything like that. Just a nice quiet drive.

Now I just have to learn how to use the damn thing











Dave

Nice Work on your Mods....

how is the touch off plate made..?

Brian, it's just a simple piece of one sided copper circuit board with a wire soldered to it that gets connected to an input into Mach 3. I would like to make a nicer one now that has interchangeable plates and cylindrical probes and center finders instead of having a separate wire for each tool.

There's a great thread that can help you get all setup over at the CNC Zone found here:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56079

It's a great tool -

Dave

Dave, I agree and the link you gave is a good one. The touch off plate is very handy. I've eliminated the plate and touch off directly on the work piece by clipping the wire lead directly to the work. The other lead is clipped to the Z axis motor. Touching off with the spindle running does not work as the bearing grease film breaks the continuity. I speak from experience on this one.

Following the code for the Z touch off, and by adding a screen to MACH, I'm set up to touch off in X and Y as well. For the X & Y touch off, I put a 0.375 drill blank in the spindle and use the drill blank radius for touch plate thickness. This setup seems to work well.

Chuck

Hi Chuck, yes, I would do the same if I worked with all conductive materials but I do a lot of plastic engraving so that just wouldn't work for me.

Thanks for sharing though

Dave

Good point, Dave.

Chuck

Thanks guys...Great Idea

Wow-- that shuttle pro is a great idea.. Ill have to look into that.


also- what camera are you using? You take lovely photos.

I wish i could take a photo that well.. I have a Cybershot 8.1 MP and a DSC 717.. neither of which have I ever been able to take that nice a pic with..

Well thanks for the kind words. All I'm using is an older Nikon Coolpix (6 MP I think ?) 3100.

I think the key is using a good amount of light and not using the flash and also extending the lense and backing off the subject of the photo. Try it!



Dave

yah,, i never use flash-- but i always seem to have grainey or blurry pics.. What do you mean by extending the lense?? do you mean zoom?


what kills me is that these two cameras were NOT cheap.. i mean, the 717 was 1k when i bought it.. and yah, occasionally-- I have a brilliant pic.. but yours really pop.. so crisp..
Keith

Yes, zoom in on the subject but stand back so you get it jsut into the picture.

I had another thought too. Maybe my pics are clearer than yours possibly could be because I use a tripod all the time.

I shake a bit too much for picture taking without a flash.

Dave

oops got to learn to read posts but nice setup.

My Shuttlepro V2 is here.

Uhm. How do i set it up? Sorry for asking for the spoon feed, but i am super slammed with other projects, school, kids.. life..

KB

Got it in-- super simple. Works awesome.

Hey fretsman, how do you like the QC chuck? (Just noticed it up on your wall.) I bought one of those for my Dyna 2400 but the run-out was horrible. The locking collar on mine is so loosey goosey it scares the crap out of me at high RPMs.

Mine came with the two springs as well, I left the stouter one on there. I saw close to 6-7 thou and heard from the mfg that 'it should be less than 10 thou". I suspect that the floppy locking collar allows the detent balls to wiggle just enough from all the vibration it induces to cause problems at times. I remember thinking that it needed a nylon sleeve press fit over the chuck body to keep the collar centered when it was down. Maybe I'll think about trying that again.

I'm working on adapting a new type of quick chuck to the Taig. The MFG of the chuck has been really helpful, so I'm hoping I can have a good working prototype in a few weeks. If the runout condition is no better than the other one then it's back to the drawing board.

What if you tried making something similar to the Tormac system? A collet with ER specs drawn up by a draw bar. Reamed or bored out to 3/8". With tool holders that would slip into it. Just like you would on a big mill if you used the same size tooling. Might be a problem with chatter if the 3/8" shank on the tool holder flexed too much but for small tooling it might work fine. You could also use a solenoid or air cylinder to release the collet with a heavy spring to pull the bar back up. Just a thought.

Rick

I deleted some of the off topic content to clean it up a bit

Hi Brian, welcome to the TOC-

You can find those lasers here:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5942~r.91939619

Remember, these are not for extremely precise setups as I can only get mine to focus around .010", but it's great for just finding a punch mark or edges of material. You can focus the lens by screwing in and unscrewing it and then as you can see by my holder, I lock it into place when I'm happy with the focal length. I have my Z just about all the way up at my home position.

As for finding location, what I do is use a .005 tip engraving cutter to make a tiny mark in a piece of material, then zero the DROs on Mach3. Then I just turn on the laser and jog over to the mark. Since the lines are .010" thick, I locate the mark just inside the crosshair lines in the upper right hand quadrant. I then take note of DRO measurements and I put those in a macro for Mach3. Now, when I want to locate a job real quick, I make sure the machine is homed, jog over the mark or egde or whatever I'm location, hit my Laser Macro button and the table locates the edge or mark directly under the spindle center for me.

The same would apply for manual usage, you would just have your measurements written down somewhere and move to those numbers by hand.

Dave

A couple of things I added/updated for my mill. I added an 1/8th jack and socket for my touch probe so that I can now switch between touchprobes and centerfinders without having all these cable soldered together.

I also made a quick mill table "stop" for those repeatable setups. A nice quick and easy project that is very useful.





Dave

Nice Touch Dave..

My probe is still acting Funny sometimes, Its better after Greg gave me the code but every once in a while it just touches and takes off

Hmmm. I wonder if that's noise interfearing with it or possibly a voltage issue.

Have you tried upping the "debounce" number on your general configs screen?

Dave

No but thats a great idea....I will try that....Thanks

Brian,

Had you tried the debounce?

Anyhow, I had added an extension to my X axis as I needed a bit more travel for a job I was doing. I needed and inch but I went a little more and made it 1-3/16ths as that's all I could fit into the enclosure as I have not done the window cutouts as of yet.

A few pics for you:

yea...no Luck...I quit messing with it after the last time it touched off and went z- instead of Z+.....something Crazy

Very Nice...thats what I had in mind for mine when I get a free Moment...LOL

A new speed plate for my mill....




Pic of it mounted in the mill enclosure.

That's way cool!

Very Nice Dave......what bit did you use on that...?

Thanks fellas.

Brian, I used a 20 degr. included engraving bit with an 1/8" shank and .005 flat tip.

Dave

A quick video showing the making of the sign for you....not very exciting but what the hell....

I really need a new camcorder.....lol!

Dave

That plate is really cool, nice job!

Steve

Hi Dave,

Just got round to viewing the video. Great stuff!

Just a couple of questions if I may:

1) What spindle speed did you use?
2) Did you use Cut2D to generate the G Code?
3) I take it that the plastic film didn't affect the quality of the cut.

Cheers,

Brian